Peter Ladner

Peter Ladner (born February 12, 1949) is a former Vancouver city councilor, Metro Vancouver vice-chair and business owner who is currently a weekly columnist at Business in Vancouver newspaper and a regular contributor to crosscut.com, a Seattle-based online news service.

From 2009-2011 he was a Fellow at the Simon Fraser University Centre for Dialogue, researching, teaching and organizing public events around the theme Planning Cities as if Food Matters. He has a lifelong interest in growing food. As a city councilor, he worked with the Vancouver Food Policy Council in initiating the city’s program to add 2010 food-producing community garden plots by 2010.

He has more than 40 years of journalistic experience in print, radio and television and is a frequent speaker on business, food, community and sustainability issues.

Peter Ladner co-founded the weekly newspaper Business in Vancouver in 1989 and continues as a Business in Vancouver weekly columnist. With a weekly readership of 60 000, Business in Vancouver is branded as Vancouver's leading source of business news, targeted at senior decision-makers. It is responsible for several prominent recognition events including the Top 40 Under 40 awards and the Influential Women in Business awards. Business in Vancouver Media Group also publishes Green Space magazine, which focuses exclusively on sustainability business opportunities, initiatives and challenges.

Ladner is vice-chair of The Natural Step Canada board and the Leon and Thea Koerner Foundation board. He previously served on the boards of the Institute for Media, Policy and Civil Society, Leadership Vancouver, the International Centre for Sustainable Cities, the University of British Columbia Alumni Association, New Media BC, the International Association of Area Business Publications, and the Forum for Women Entrepreneurs. He participated in the Vancouver City Planning Commission, the capital campaign committee for Vancouver Public Library and the Central Valley Greenway.

Ladner is a long-time environmentalist, healthy living enthusiast, and advocate of the smart city concept of using technology to make government more efficient and effective. He blogs about the urban food revolution at urbanfoodrevolution.com and on issues of sustainability and civic governance in Vancouver and elsewhere on his website.

As a former member of Vancouver City Council, Ladner was a director of TransLink and vice-chair of Metro Vancouver, the Regional District. He has been vice-chair of the Metro Vancouver Sustainable Region Initiative and a member the World Urban Forum Committee. On City Council, he chaired the budget committee and was a member of committees on transportation and traffic and planning and environment. He was also a member of the Vancouver Economic Development Commission.

On April 3, 2009, Peter Ladner's sister, Wendy Ladner-Beaudry, was found dead in Pacific Spirit Park, "the victim of an apparent random attack."[2] Wendy was the co-chair of the BC Games Society, "past board member of Sports BC and chair of the KidSport Fund, a national charity set up to help low-income families participate in sport."[3] Peter Ladner stated that despite the tragedy of his sister's murder, Vancouver remains a safe city to live in.[2] In a public statement, Ladner stressed that:

"Our family, all of us, pledge to work diligently with the police, the neighbours and the wider community to bring this killer to justice and establish the safety of our entire community."[4]